A winner of the Tokyo Competition at the age of 12, a nominee at the Victoires de la Musique in the category of “Instrumental Soloist Revelation”, aged 15, Raphaël Sévère won, in November 2013, the prestigious Young Concerts Artists International Auditions in New York, whose jury not only awarded him the First Prize, but also eight out of the ten Special Prizes.
Raphaël has performed as a soloist with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin at the Berlin Philharmonic, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s at Alice Tully Hall in New York, the Orchestre de chambre de Paris at the Saint-Denis Festival, the Russian National Orchestra at the Colmar Festival, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, the Orchestres nationaux du Capitole de Toulouse, Bordeaux-Aquitaine, Pays de la Loire, Lille, Strasbourg and the Orchestre national de l’Ile-de- France.
As a recitalist, he has performed at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées, at Kennedy Center in Washington and Merkin Concert Hall in New York, Gardner Museum in Boston and Vancouver, Auditorium du Louvre, KKL in Lucerne, Rheingau Musik Festival, Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Fondazione La Società dei Concerti di Milano, French May in Hong Kong, Festival de la Grange de Meslay, Salle Molière in Lyon, Grand Théâtre d’Aix en Provence, Festival de Radio France Montpellier, Folles Journées in Nantes, Warsaw and Tokyo. His chamber music partners feature as follows: the Ébène, Modigliani, Pražák, Van Kuijk Quartets, the Wanderer, Messiaen and Karénine trios, as well as Martha Argerich, Boris Berezovsky, Adam Laloum, Jean-Frédéric Neuburger, Gidon Kremer, David Grimal, Gérard Caussé, Antoine Tamestit, Gary Hoffman, Xavier Philips, Victor Julien-Laferrière, François Salque… Having always been interested in composition and himself a composer, he premièred Obscurs, his first piece for clarinet and guitar in 2016 at the Salle Cortot along with Antoine Morinière. This work was released by “L’empreinte mélodique” publishing. In 2019, he composed Sept Miniatures for solo piano (premiered in February 2019) and Entre chien et Loup for solo guitar (premiered in Vienna during the summer 2019). In 2020, he will compose his first Concerto for clarinet and orchestra, commissioned by the Orchestre de Bretagne, as well as a trio for the Karénine Trio, commissioned by the Jeunes Talents Festival.
His recordings have been awarded a “Diapason d’Or” by Diapason magazine, “Choc” by Classica and “événement ƒƒƒƒ” by Télérama.
